


De Atramentum

by basically_thearlaich



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Exploration of Tattooing among Mandalorians, Gen, Mandalorian Culture, Mandalorian History, Mandalorian Spiritualism touched, Mentions of mental instability, Taung, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:02:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26948668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basically_thearlaich/pseuds/basically_thearlaich
Summary: [atramentum,lat.- black paint]An inspection of ritualistic paint and its alternative uses through varying degrees of Fett (and one adjacent)
Relationships: Arla Fett & Bardan Jusik, Boba Fett & Jango Fett, CT-7567 | Rex & Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	De Atramentum

**Author's Note:**

> Big Thanks to [PaxDuane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaxDuane/pseuds/PaxDuane) for their patience with my questions when I first came to them to prattle about Mando'ade and Tattoos :)

+++

It started as a tradition so many eons ago that its truth has been buried in the rubble of wars and conquests, died with the embers of burnt-down Empires and has been as forgotten as the peoples of old who had started in the first place. 

Which is to say, some of the spark has remained in the stories and fables handed down by generations and can still be found even in some of the more esoteric lore that has at this point been written down and academicized. 

It’s theoretical knowledge at most for the few who have ever laid hands on such texts or had lent ears to the fewer still who handed down such things orally. 

It’s lost. 

But not quite. 

[Because what could ever be, in the eternity of the _Ka’ra_.] 

  
  


…

  
  


The last to truly enforce the law as it had been first conceived, had been _Te Sol’yc Mand’alor_. As the first documented ruler of the _Mando’ade_ , he had yet been surrounded by kinsmen and women as they had known it for millennia before. 

The subject of _gam sur’gaan_ had not truly been an issue back then, in a society that, as a collective, had been aware of its meaning and its necessity to be permitted to wield weaponry. Trained from an early age, younglings among the society would be granted their first _gam sur’gaan_ at their coming-of-age ceremony at the age of thirteen when they transitioned physiologically - and so often psychologically - into adulthood. 

It is estimated that the practice had been around long before that but considering the thin evidence and reference material, this hypothesis remains untested until today. 

As it were, _Mand’alor the First_ would be the last to keep holding up these traditions as they were, for his successor, _Te Kandosii Mand’alor_ would open up the venues of adopting foreign species into their ranks and would thus oversee a necessary change in the old tradition of permitting only those _painted_ to wield weaponry. 

[Anchored and venerated as change and growth happened to be among the society of Taungs, the altering of the tradition would not be met with strong resistance rather than acceptance of progress.] 

Most of those adopted would have ended up proving their mettle during the initial contact with the bellicose peoples and thus earn their right to wield weaponry for having already proven their worth of it. This would vary and depend on the age and maturity of the _verd_ in question but during the rule of _Mand’alor the Indomitable_ , the _gam sur’gaan_ would transform into an honoured ritual permitting the wearing and wielding of the _beskar laar’la_ \- the inheritable iron that Taung would meld their masks and visors of, the only armour for a long era in which wearing actual armour would be considered a heresy to _Kad Harangir_ who had given its creations _pel’gam_ for a reason. It held stories, as it goes, of those who’d worn it before and of the worlds it had seen. The _Ka’ra_ themselves, it was said, were settled within these plates and the position of _gotan_ was one of much prestige both in social as well as spiritual standing; second only to the _Mand’alor_. 

And thus wearing _gam sur’gaan_ was the only way a warrior would be permitted to wear and wield _beskar_ \- a ritualistic acceptance into the ranks of the _Mando’ade_ where before wielding weaponry had made you a mere candidate for such honours. 

  
  


\---

  
  


One of Boba’s clearest memories of Jan’buir had been the long-awaited day of return from his _verd’goten_ \- his ritualistic passage into adulthood which had seen him start from an uninhabited island somewhere in the middle of one of the Kaminoan Oceans. Boba had fought for his survival and the completion of his mission for a straight week - had survived the rise of the angry tides by the skin of his teeth and the teachings of his _buir_. 

He arrives on the back of an Aiwha, soaked and cold but standing tall when Jango finds him with the gaggle of Alphas he is currently instructing. 

Boba brings him the head of the Kaminoan he’s been sent to find and Jan’buir grins sharply when he pulls him into a _kov’nyn_ that feels hot against his frozen skin. 

In the evening - when he’d showered long enough to raise his temperature naturally and hat ended his wash with water so hot that the steam had followed him out of the cubicle - Jan’buir sits him down to hammer the solitary band of ink around his arm, leaving four not even one-centimeter-wide breaks in the circlet on his upper arm. For the four duties his _buir_ could see for him to uphold during his life; where other designs would interlock with the simple circlet that signified his maturity. 

There was the possible - and likely - path of clann leader, that would spread from the circlet onto his upper arm and onto his shoulder, where he were to bear the weight of responsibility. And if he were to choose the path of his _buir_ and his _ba’buir_ before him, the duty of _Mand’alor_ would spread from his left shoulder over his right and onto his back. 

There was the possible path of _riduur_ that would spread from the inner side of his upper arm over the left side of his chest until it would reach the centre of his ribcage where - outwardly, on his armour - _bes’kar’ta_ sat, which would be exchanged for the _beskar_ heart his _riduur_ would wear in their armour. 

There was the possible path of _buir_ , that would spread from the circlet and spill onto the arm that would be meant to guide the _ik’aad_ , the _ad’ika_ , to offer a steadying hand and a grounding support. _Buir_ wears his _ad’irud_ with pride that evening, bare and open for Boba to see. 

The last possible path would always be the one left open. It will never, Jango tells him, be filled by an earthen possibility. They leave this part open, he tells him as he wipes the blood and surplus colour away, for _Kad Harangir_. For the chance at change through destruction. 

“ _That_ ,” he intones, “ _is also why it’s important for the circlet to never touch ends_. _Nothing good can come from that which sentients consider ‘complete’ and ‘perfect’. Arasuum would have us believe in that. As Mando’ade, we know better_.”

  
  


…

  
  


Given their traceable origin in a once mostly united people, similar designs of the _gam sur’gaan_ hold similar meanings, though the versatile history of _Mando’ade_ lead to different clanns deviating from a standardisable language of signs, patterns and meanings. 

The story on a _Mando’ad_ , however, always does remain generally interpretable by any of those who have been initiated in the culture as is. 

_Gam sur’gaan_ of specific duties, for example, never much vary even in the grand scheme of things and when his _buir_ marches on where Boba cannot follow at sixteen, he takes up the one profession he has only ever been trained in. At the time when Boba Fett becomes clan head of Clann Fett, the straight lines of the _Mando’a_ B start wrapping the blaster-rifle character around his upper right arm, ends open, for the profession he steps into. Boba Fett, head of Clann Fett, _Beroya._

  
  


\---

  
  


As a people of change, often through confrontational means, it is not unheard of for _Mando’ade_ to recognize warriors that have been made before their time. Children that have seen the end of their parents or even the massacre of their village and wielding blasters in defence or even revenge. 

Not rarely are _Mando’ade_ a people who have been made and forged and adopted out of situations others would deem desperate. Situations they, themselves, not rarely come out of with scars of their own - physical or mental. 

When Arla Fett is _found_ , she has been _painted_ by _Kyr’tsad_. The story on her body is a lie - one she’s been forced into telling; one she’s been forced into until it was all she could see and she’d broken trying to deny that which greeted her every day in the mirror. A mind could not remain stable with those reminders and the environment to match. 

Much as it is a path hemmed and hindered by thorns and dangers, Clann Skirata gives her a chance that she grabs on to with both demented hands and digs her fingers into until she bleeds with the stories she lays over the lies like subdermal bandaids. 

She covers the circle of her sham of a _verd’goten_ with thorns and roses - and heaves neede-thin lances into the openings (three, because she _believes_ in _Kad Harangir_ and it _must_ have been them to have guided Bard’ika, into the destruction that Arla had already heaved unto her captors). She covers the arm that is meant for _ad’ike_ in blackness and a silent vow that screams at any _Mando’ad_ who looks. 

She blacks out the duties _Kyr’tsad_ had heaped unto her right arm until only whiteness remains and the rest of her body slowly covers in thorny vegetation, in bleached bones and small heaps of ash, bronze skin vanishing under sharp knives and the bared teeth of a roaring rancor tattooed on her chest glaring at anyone who dares to look too closely. 

Bard’ika takes her with him when he finds an _ad’ik_ and the ink-smith hammers the duty of a _buir_ under his skin. With his blessings, Arla puts the name of the little one over her heart because - as she will tell anyone who cares to listen - the little one will forever be the only love of her life.

[It will remain to be true.]

  
  


\---

  
  


These are the things that make us, Rex’d said, pulling off the top of his blacks to reveal the ink on his back for her. “‘ _s not always easy identifying deads when you all have the same face or the same white gam. Sometimes your helmet gets lost. Sometimes you forget your number. But these--”_

She can see them now. Spreading over his shoulders, his arms, his front. One even sits at his hip.

“ _\--these will tell you exactly who we are. Even the lack of them will tell us a story. Will tell us your name if we can find them on you - and will tell us your number if we can’t find any on you.”_

“ _Doesn’t it hurt?”_

He looks taken aback at the question, amber eyes surprised before pensive. “ _Oh. Yeah. But… That’s a different kind of hurt.”_

It’s a feeling she gets off him that makes her take a guess. “ _...Like when your muscles ache after running?”_

“ _Like that yeah. It’s a decision you made in the beginning - you know your body is gonna let you know afterwards but-- It’s a decision you made living. And it’s an ache you feel because you’re living.”_

…

  
  


Ahsoka knows what the Coruscant elite would be thinking of this. What _most_ of Coruscant’s upper levels would be thinking of this. She’s grown up on 5127 - it is not a done thing to have subdermal markers as a resident of the furthest level on _the_ Core World. 

Which is, probably, exactly why she’s doing it. 

Not that her hard-earned credits should go to a frivolous endeavour such as this one but she has secured food and shelter for the next month; she has a job lined up with Cad and Lupé and if she does it _right_ it might actually become a regular gig. Not that she’s entirely set on becoming a Space Rogue but… It’s a venue for exploration, at the very least. 

As such, she doesn’t necessarily feel bad about spending her cash on something that’s been brewing in the back of her mind for a while now. She’s not, after all, a 5127-resident anymore. She’s none of what she has been and there’s a likelihood she never will be again. Padmé had always advised her that historical markers of personhood should be connoted one way or another and ever since her talk with Rex she couldn’t help but know just how she would have wanted a connotation to go. Sure, it had been hypothetical back then but now--

Now she’s in _Kih’manda’yaim_ with an appointment and the blasters on her hip itch for the palms of her hand the same way the looks of the people itch on her skin. 

This, however, does not stop her from entering the small shop. Does not stop her from stripping her tunics and baring her scars to a man she doesn’t know. Does not hold her back from breathing through the sting of ink as it’s poked under her skin over the duration of weeks and then months until it’s finished. 

When it is, Ahsoka Tano lies buried in her shoulders and Ashla wears her story on her back. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to include Bo-Katan in the work because I like think she would have gotten a mourning sleeve tattooed on her right forearm - the outline of a bandage with the names of those comrades who had fallen during the liberation of Mandalore (no matter how brief it may have been; it might just have been one of her most important campaigns and, initially, it had been successful) and, where her pulse sits, the name of her sister - but she was the only Kryze and the story was pretty like this so... no Bo. 
> 
> _gam sur'gaan_ means _literally_ Skin Picture - because I was _lazy_ in finding another way to describe it and nothing else seemed to fit my fancy...


End file.
